Yves Hanoulle has edited a book, called Who Is Agile? Full disclosure: I am in the book.

I love this book. Not because I am in it, but because of all the back-stories, the pictures, and the links. And, oh my goodness, the links.

I did not expect to love this book. I expected to like the book. I expected to learn something. I expected to entertain myself for an hour or two. After all, how interesting could it be? I’d been reading the Who Is… series on Yves’ blog. Yes, I’d missed a couple of people, but really. Put all the blog posts together, and have a book? So Yves edited, and added more links and edited and added more links, and maybe I’d missed a few people, but really, a book? How compelling could that be?

Well, you should read this book. You will understand how agile has become as strong as it is, not because of the signatories of the manifesto, but because of those of us who use agile in our day-to-day lives. How we live it and use it in our teams and our work. 

Read about Bob Marshall, George Dinwiddie, and Jutta Eckstein. And those are just the people I feel as if I already know. Look at their beautiful pictures. Read their back-stories. Get to know them as people. And then, click on all of the links.

What is truly valuable about this book is the links Yves has collected for each of us Who Is people. There are links to each person’s web site, books, blog, videos, interesting stories, the list goes on. The links are what makes the book. Yves has created a collection unlike anything else I have seen.

Yves used Leanpub to create the book, which means you buy it now, and as he updates it, you get the updated version. What’s not to love? You get a wonderful book now, you keep getting a wonderful book, you read lots of different perspectives on how we all got to be agilists, and, you get all of these links.

Buy the book. Smile as you read it. Sigh as you read the one “Who was.” Laugh at the funny parts. Enjoy it. And, thank Yves for all the work. The links, my goodness, the links.